Psychology of Interest Groups and Mndset of Efficency

Introduction

According to Bion, efficient groups are usually hard to accomplish. (Rioch, 1970) This is because human unconsciousness affects how individuals behave and how they behave in groups. First of all, the group can affect how the individual behaves. Le Bon explains how the group affect how the individual loses self-identity and act in another way compared as if he or she was by himself or isolated. (Freud, 1921) Moreover, groups create on individuals a sense of autonomy or being part of a group which affects how they behave in the group. (French and Russ, 2002) Furthermore, groups have a tendency to behave in ways other than planned. Le Bion describes the three basic assumptions of dependency, fight or flight and pair and how these make the group less effective. (Rioch, 1970)

Moreover, researchers have found ways to cope with the different challenges that prevent effective group work. From that, the essay will be divided into three parts. The first part will explain the basic concepts for the understanding of the essay such as what is the unconscious mind, what is a group and group work. The second part will analyze will mention how groups tend to affect the individual with reference to the work of Le Bon and some studies in Autonomy and dependency behaviour of individuals. Lastly, the third part will analyze how groups tend to behave as they are not supposed to with the three basic assumptions of Bion. The essay will provide ways given by the researchers on how to cope with the inefficiency of the group.

The Unconscious at Work

It is crucial to understand the unconsciousness of the human mind to further develop the understanding of group behaviour. According to Freud, the conscious mind consists of all the mental processes of which we are aware (Freud, 1915). Whereas the unconscious mind is composed of the mental process that is inaccessible to consciousness but affects behaviour, feelings and judgements (Wilson, 2009). The feelings, desires and motives are powerful affected by our past experiences and stored in the unconscious (Mcleod, 2009). Several factors that affect the unconscious are mainly learnt by our environment, family, relations, experiences (Casemore, 1994). As our unconscious affects our behaviour, it consequently affects how people behave in groups and how groups behave. Moreover, it is important to have a clear understanding of work and groups. According to Bion groups are as functions or set of functions (Rioch, 1970)

For example, people laying on the beach are not a group, however, when someone is drowning on the sea and asking for help and then people gather together to see how to save her or his life, they become a group as they have the function of saving the person life (Rioch, 1970). Therefore groups need to have a mission or a common goal to work together. It could be that they have similar beliefs.

On the other hand, work groups have more requirements. According to Freud, work in groups is one of the two biggest achievements of humankind and that is because it requires facing rather denying a reality beyond the self and it requires the capacity of relationship with separate others, instead than using the relationship in order to meet needs of the self (Casemore, 1994). Freud states that work means renunciation of wishful thinking and unrealistic fantasies and acknowledge of time, space and gender differences (Casemore, 1994).

Bion attempted to define efficient groups which he called “work groups” (Rioch, 1970). The group work is an example of a highly efficient group. Some characteristics of a workgroup are the group has a purpose or a defined task, the structure of the group is established for the purpose of completing the task, the members of the groups cooperate as separate and discrete individuals, individuals are with one with the task and lastly the group constantly test its conclusions and seeks for knowledge to learn how it may be best to achieve the goal (Rioch, 1970).

How Groups Affect Individual Behaviors

It crucial to understand how groups affect individuals. According to Le Bon, when individuals join a group, the person enters into a collective mind, which makes them feel, think and act in a manner quite different from which the individual would feel, think and act in isolation (Freud, 1921). Le Bon mentions the disappearance of the conscious personality, the predominance of the unconscious personality and ceasing to be guided by his or her will (Freud, 1921) Le Bon divides this consequence into two terms, contagion and suggestion (Freud, 1921). Contagion makes the individual sacrifice his interest in the collective interest (Freud, 1921).Suggestion is the degree to which an individual is hypnotized by a hypnotizer(Freud, 1921). This group effect in individuals is seen in Sherif`s autokinetic experiment, where people would guess the distance travelled by a small spot of light (Mcleod, 2016). The experiment concluded that people would adjust their answer after listening to what others said (Mcleod, 2016). Therefore, groups could make individuals lose their own will and judgement.

Dependency and Autonomy

Humans tend to have a conflict when it comes to the decision of being in a group and their autonomy. According to Turquet, belonging brings satisfaction to the conscious and consciousness, however, and exclusion of a group could be felt life-threatening(Turquet, 1974). Moreover, as mentioned before being in a group threatens our sense of identity and need to experience ourselves as the authors of our actions (French and Russ, 2002). This conflict between autonomy and relatedness could be seen affecting groups in organizations. As an example, in a therapeutic community for disturbed adolescents, two staff members were in a debate. The young staff would defend the adolescents that break the rules. (French and Russ, 2002) On the other hand, another much older staff said that it is important to be rigid and strict with adolescent misbehaviour. (French and Russ, 2002) In the end, the group would have to decide whether to be more understandable or rigid with adolescent (French and Russ, 2002). Therefore, the relatedness between people in an organization threatens or undermine your habitual individual thinking.

Moreover, the withdraw of membership in groups and organization is increasing (French and Russ, 2002). The author mentions that the return for membership is decreasing (French and Russ, 2002). Some of the consequences are the fact that people obtain less security, sense of belonging, there is less satisfaction from our independent needs, and less fulfilment or job satisfaction (French and Russ, 2002) Therefore, in order for the organization to become more effective, leaders are important. The managers need to understand their beliefs and biases and at the same time help the team understand their biases.

How Members of the Group Might Behave in Ways Other Than Planned

Bion states that group rarely works as work groups because humans tend to become self-contradictory and inefficient (Rioch, 1970). Therefore, Bion developed three basic assumptions of how groups behave. These are called assumptions because the groups assume that a biased belief is real. The assumptions elucidate the behaviour of the group and therefore reduces the ability to work as a workgroup (Rioch, 1970). The first assumption is dependency groups. A dependency group aim is to be sustained by a leader to whom will offer them nourishment, material, security and protection (Rioch, 1970). The group act as if they know nothing, and they are inadequate and immature to solve complexities (Rioch, 1970). Therefore, they idealized a leader as a kind of god that will take care of them. As an example, my mother is the boss of a business, and her way of managing is hierarchical and high control management. Therefore, she makes the main decisions and everyone depends on what she says. Consequently, the group has learnt to be depended on my mom. Therefore, sometimes the workers act as if they don't know how to do their job and therefore they need my mothers to help.

The second assumption is 'fight or flight'. Flight or flight groups have the aim to preserve itself, and this is done by facing a threat or escaping from it. (Bion, 1968) (Rioch, 1970).The individual does not matter that much, therefore an individual could be left for the better or survival of the group(Rioch, 1970). If there is no enemy, the leader will find one, because that fear of the threat is what keeps them together. The leader is crucial as he or she decides whether to escape or fights(Rioch, 1970). The leader should be able to detect dangers and be ready to fight or self-sacrifice for the herd. An example was visualized by Bion on a coal mining company. Workers would have to perform better than their teammates to obtain better positions. (De Board, 2014) Consequently, every time something went wrong on the mining, none of the workers would take responsibility or they would blame others because they would know that it would affect their chances for better positions (De Board, 2014). The competitive environment created a fight or flight attitude on employees.

Last but not least, the third assumption is pairing group. This group aim of the gathering is for reproduction purposes(Rioch, 1970). There is no need for a leader, as the leader is unborn, and the hope that the new unborn leader will eventually come is what keeps them together (Rioch, 1970). The unborn leader is the Savior, the one that will solve everything. An example, are certain religions. Muslim belief that the Messiah will come and solve the world suffering. This hope of the unborn leader is one of the reasons that keep that religion group together or make the belief stronger.

However, Bion believed that groups could be improved and become more effective. First of all, in order to use the assumption to as an advantage is to pair the assumptions to the appropriate occasion, that would make groups more effective. For example, the army would fit the fight and flight assumption group, as the groups need to have a leader that would tell them when to fight or run away from danger. Moreover, as the group becomes more aware of its basic assumption, the more the group can work more effectively. As groups realised the issues of the basic assumptions for the effectiveness of the group and themselves, they will eventually reduce their bias.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the unconsciousness influence individual behaviour, feelings and judgements and therefore, it also influences how the individual is affected by a group. According to Le Bon, there is a conflict in people of whether or not be part of a group, due to its pros and cons respectively. Being part of a group create an unconscious satisfaction, however, the individuals tend to lose their self-identity when they are in a group and start to behave differently compare as if the individual was by his or her own. Furthermore, the willing of being part of a membership or an organization is decreasing because of low security and satisfaction organizations are offering. As a consequence, more people are seeking to meet their own independent needs, rather than working in an organization. From that managers need to understand their own bias and others, to learn how to manage group biases. Last but now least, groups tend to behave as they are not supposed to. Bion developed three basic assumptions; dependence, fight/flight and pairing which are the assumption that members of a group belief as true. Every person has a tendency in each assumption. The assumption makes the group to not work as an effective group. Therefore, a group should be working with the appropriate environment, to become more effective.